248 EUROPE AT PLAY

As a change from the smart bars I like sometimes
to sit outside the cafes, trying to be a real boulevardier,
sipping Byrrh, Raphael, Pernod or Mandarin, or sucking
other similar syrupy concoctions through straws.

Luncheon at Lame, one of the few remaining Parisian
restaurants of the older style, where the grande cuisine is
supreme, showed Lord Carnarvon (just returned from
staying with Lord Derby at Cannes) hurrying off with
Vicomte Sebastian Foy to the races at Maisons-Laffitte.
He was in a hurry, because he had not hurried over his
luncheon: the proprietor of Larue would rightly treat
that as sacrilege and an insult to his chef.

Another of my favourite luncheon resorts is Prunier's,
either "down-town" in the Rue Duphot or "up-west"
at Traktir off the Champs-Elysees. In both places you
will be sitting over a couple of million bottles of wine,
in case you are really thirsty. Try, one day, a light white
wine, Chateau de la Lorie, from the vineyard of Count
Louis de Saint-Genys: it is a good accompaniment to
Pruniefs Be/oxs, Armoricaims* or Mammes, from the
oyster family.

And I rarely fail, on a visit here, to chalk up my number
for a duck at Le Tour d? Argent, or to see how the snails
at L'Escargot have progressed after their meals on
Burgundian vine-leaves*

An afternoon's golf at Saint-Cloud is very enjoyable in
fine weather; the two courses are good, and one of them
vety good and very difficult* Do not forget that, like the
Fontainebleau course, it is closed on Tuesdays, The dub
is barely a quarter of an hour away from Paris, and all
the way, when pkying tound, you can see the Eiffel
Tower and Montmartte hill, much better known by
night than by day.